Paula Cleggett-Haleim

Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

April 6, 1993
(Phone: 202/358-0883)

Michael Finneran
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
(Phone: 301/286-5565)

RELEASE: 93-63

SCIENTISTS REVEAL NATURE OF EXPLODING, RED SUPERGIANT STAR

NASA scientists have direct evidence that red supergiants --

the largest stars known -- end their existence in massive
explosions known as supernovae. Until this week, astronomers
could only speculate that these explosions represented the death
of such stars.

"It's a very exciting result and a tremendous advance for

stellar astronomy," said Dr. George Sonneborn, of NASA's Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

"This substantiates decades of work in stellar structure

theory," said Sonneborn, a research scientist for NASA's
International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite, which obtained
the new evidence through observations of a new supernova on March
30. "It has long been suspected that red supergiants explode to
become supernovae. Now we have first-hand evidence of that."

"This clearly is the second most important supernova of the

century," said Sonneborn. "It's of major significance."

The Type II supernova took place about 12 million light-years

from Earth in a galaxy known as M81 in the Ursa Major or Big Bear
constellation. It has been designated SN 1993J because it was the
tenth supernova discovered this year.
IUE's Fast Response Was Critical

The supernova's nearness and the quickness with which IUE was
able to observe it were critical factors that enabled scientists
to verify an aspect of stellar evolution theory.
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A supergiant is massive -- about the diameter of the solar

system out to the planet Jupiter. Stellar evolution theory long
has taught that red supergiants can explode to become supernovae.
But in the only previous case in which astronomers definitively
determined the type of star that produced a supernova explosion,
it turned out to be a smaller and hotter blue supergiant. That
supernova occurred in 1987, 160,000 light-years away and also was
observed by IUE.

The difference between red and blue supergiants is that the

blue variety are believed to have evolved from red supergiants
after shedding much of their extended atmosphere. Thus, blue
supergiants are smaller than red supergiants.

The satellite's observations of the supernova revealed that the

exploding star is surrounded by a thick shell of slowly expanding
gas. Heated to very high temperatures by the enormous energy
released in the stellar explosion, the ultraviolet emissions from
this glowing gas were detected by IUE.

A red supergiant loses large amounts of material through a

slowly moving wind flowing outward from the star. The presence of
this glowing gas in the first observations of the supernova means
that it must be close to the explosion and that the star must have
been in a red supergiant phase shortly before its demise.

In a Type II supernova explosion, the central core of the

supergiant star collapses after the star uses up its nuclear fuel.
This central implosion sets off an explosion of the outer layers
of the star, leaving behind a small, incredibly dense remnant body
called a neutron star or possibly a black hole. A black hole
derives its name from the theory that its gravity is so powerful
not even light can escape it.

"A supernova is the most cataclysmic event in the universe,"

said Goddard's Dr. Yoji Kondo, IUE Project Scientist. "The light
it produces for a few weeks is roughly equivalent to the
brightness of the whole Milky Way galaxy, which contains a few
hundred billion stars."

Explosions of these huge stars are not uncommon, but rarely are
they observed so close by, Kondo added. "On a cosmic scale, it's
practically a next-door neighbor," he said, of SN 1993J which IUE
observed after it was first spotted by amateur astronomers in
Spain.

Prior to the 1987 blue supergiant explosion, the most recent

nearby supernova that could be seen without a telescope took place
in 1604 and was observed by Johannes Kepler, one of the great
German astronomers.

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Unlike the 1604 and 1987 supernovae, however, the one viewed
March 30 was not close enough to be visible to the naked eye.
Its brightness was of 9.2 magnitude. A brightness of at least
the sixth magnitude would have been necessary for the March 30
supernova to be seen without using a telescope.

Learning From SN 1993J

Kondo and Sonneborn said much stands to be learned from the

March 30 supernova. Because it is so close and because IUE
observed it so quickly, scientists will obtain data about the
explosion that they otherwise would not have gotten.

"We'll learn things about supernovae that we never could have

until now," said Sonneborn.

For instance, astronomers for the first time anticipate

studying the stellar wind -- the outflowing of energy -- from this
type of star in a fashion not possible before. That's because the
light from the supernova illuminated the red supergiant's stellar
wind in a way that scientists can see it, Sonneborn said.

"The stellar wind will tell us about the late stages of the
star's life prior to the explosion," Sonneborn said. "This also
is a rare opportunity to study the tenuous gases in the far
reaches of the Milky Way galaxy and in the M81 galaxy by observing
the absorption caused by such gases upon the spectrum of this
bright supernova."

NASA's International Ultraviolet Explorer was launched into

modified synchronous Earth orbit in January 1978 by a Delta rocket
from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in cooperation with the European Space
Agency (ESA) and the British Science and Engineering Research
Council. It is managed by Goddard Space Flight Center for the
Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Goddard shares operational control of the satellite with the ESA
in Villafranca, Spain.
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